The Parable of the Evil Network

Copyright © 2005 by Gary Tjaden

Once upon a time there was an ideal computer network, a perfectly running network where there were no glitches or viruses or crashes or slow downs or spam. All went well in the Perfect Network for a long, long time.

One day someone with bad genes decided to write code for a nasty worm virus, one that wasn’t detectable at first by ordinary means. Soon, it infected nearly half of the computers on the network, even though most users were unaware that their machines were compromised. The Network Administrator knew from the very beginning who wrote the bad code, but he did not act at first because he had a master plan.

As the virus evolved, it began to corrupt data and generate spam. Some computer programs quit functioning properly, and crashes and slow downs and freezes became more and more frequent. Soon, the Network Administrator removed all of the infected computers from the network because they kept spamming the uninfected ones.

Wasting no time, the owners of the infected computers formed their own network, the Evil Network, intending to hack into, overpower, and defeat the virus-free one. They invented the Trojan Horse Virus, and in the guise of friendship and freedom, visited a number of sub-networks spread out across the city, hoping to sell their infected software. Fortunately, the Network Administrator warned all of the sub-networks what to expect from the Evil Network.

Only one sub-network became infected, due mainly to a blonde secretary and a coworker who was madly in love with her. Immediately, the Network Administrator kicked their sub-network offline.

“Why did you do this?” the Network Administrator asked the secretary.

“The salesman told me his software would make your program work even better,” she said.

To her boyfriend, the Network Administrator said, “Why did you do this?”

“I was afraid you’d fire my girlfriend, so I tried to cover it up,” he said.

This made the Network Administrator very sad, but he already had a plan to deal with such a problem. “I will give your sub-network one uncorrupted mainframe computer with virus-protected hard drives. You must input your data onto a floppy disk, and from a book of codes, insert requests to delete any corrupted data on your personal disks.

“When your disk is full and your work is done, a local administrator will take your disk and copy it onto the hard drives of the main-frame. At the end of the business year, the main-frame’s hard drives will be returned to me, and I will scan them and delete all of the corrupted files that have the codes to delete them. If there are any remaining corrupted files with no instructions to delete it, your work will be discarded, your floppy disk will be taken from you and incinerated, and you will not get paid.

This method worked well for a while, but eventually, due to carelessness and perversity, the mainframe computer was mishandled, parts were damaged, instructions ignored, and the big hard drives turned up missing one day.

“I’ll have to send my Son to fix this problem,” the network administrator said. “He’s the assistant network administrator. I’ve taught him everything I know. He’s the only one who can restore the infected sub-network.”

When the Son arrived, there wasn’t much to work with since there was very little left of the original mainframe. In its place was an obsolete desktop computer, hopelessly corrupted by the evil virus. Every time he tried to convince the people that their old computer was useless, they got mad, and continued to download their infected data there.

“I can fix your floppy disks and remove the virus,” he told them, but they were offended and didn’t like him. They didn’t believe he was the Network Administrator’s Son, either.

“There’s nothing wrong with our machine,” they insisted. “It was good enough for our forefathers, and it’s good enough for us. We don’t need you, whoever you think you are.”

The Network Administrator’s Son continued to work one-on-one for several years, repairing damaged floppy disks as he taught the computer codes needed to alert the Network Administrator to delete any infected files from the disks.

Finally, the local sub-network managers kidnapped the Administrator’s Son in the middle of the night and accused him of trying to ruin their business. When he refused to take his repair business elsewhere, in exasperation, they beat him to death with one of the rusty old hard drives from the original main frame.

Fortunately, the Network Administrator kept a backup copy of his Son’s memories and a sample of his DNA, so he downloaded those memories into a clone of his Son. Just before he left the corrupted sub-network to rejoin his Father, the Son promised, “I will return for those of you who have inserted deletion codes instructing me to remove the infected files from your floppy disks.

At that time, I will destroy that wicked network. I will give you a new sub-network and bring you online to my very own Perfect Network, where there are no viruses, no bad data, no crashes, no slow downs, and no spam. In my network, you will live and work happily, virus-free, forever.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Evil Network was completely destroyed, leaving no trace of the virus anywhere in the entire city. Everyone else really did live and work happily ever after.